March, first week :: 2021

I learned a new word for myself this week: nemophilist : someone who is in love with forests and the woods, who visits often, a “haunter of the woods.” I was born in a desert valley, but I swear my heart formed under the roots of a moss-pelted Douglas fir. Even as a child I knew that I belonged with trees. I love so many kinds of natural places, but when I enter our tiny patch of woods and stand still, I feel connected and known in a different way, as if I had sprung from this very ground, as if I am a part of the vital network that links all the natural world. And of course, I am. It’s a part of our modern affliction that we think of nature as something outside ourselves, something we go to visit or escape into. But nature is not something out there, it is us.

Sometimes, I begin my day meditating outside on the back deck. In the winter, that means bundling up and carrying a candle out to my chair, but there is something wonderful about sitting in the still-dark, listening to the world before the neighbors begin driving by on the road below, just the sound of the creek and the occasional shush of trees I can’t yet see. It’s like finding myself again before the world pulls and tears, asking me to forget. Today I found myself whispering, show me how to live within this harmony.

I spend a lot of time thinking how to lessen my impact, create zero waste, leave no trace. But lately I’ve been thinking how that language can lead to disordered thinking of ourselves as something apart from, as invaders who don’t belong here and must tiptoe across the landscape in repentance for existing. Instead, I want to start asking how to live with, to learn the harmony and reciprocity I am meant to be a part of. Not just how can I quit consuming too much and creating waste, but how can I be a gift to this land? What can I give back to it? It’s a small shift, but one that leads me more into the flow of abundance and generosity that I believe nature is always singing about.

This week the sun arrived and a daffodil bloomed, sapsuckers are at work. Thank you, March for coming. We needed you.

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Notes from this week:

Fred Bahnson’s essay “Keeping the World in Being” - “I’m attracted to Cassian’s writings and the work of other early monastics because they reveal parallels between the era of the desert fathers and our own; they, too, lived during a time when the known world was coming unhinged. In 313 CE, when the Roman emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, thereby marking the beginning of Christendom, men and women of conscience knew that the wedding of church and state was not a betrothal: it was a betrayal. The early anchorites withdrew from this arranged marriage because they knew that Christendom could no longer sustain their inner lives, that civilization had in fact gone mad. They left the cities and withdrew to the Egyptian desert, where the vastness of their spiritual hunger could be met by an equally vast landscape.”

~ With apologies to the minimalist mood of the moment, I’ve given over to bookish hedonism. I don’t want to be restrained. I’m happiest when I’m surrounded by them, reading them, creating them. Nemophile, bibliophile, not sorry. As Ryan Holiday says at the end of his newsletters:

I promised myself a long time ago that if I saw a book that interested me I’d never let time or money or anything else prevent me from having it. This means that I treat reading with a certain amount of respect.

May have sent this image to my husband ten times this week:

Aidan McGarry’s book wall.

~ “Every hour spent reading is an hour spent learning to write.” ~ Robert Macfarlane

~Despite my ongoing efforts, I’m not much of a music person (I know, I’m sorry, my formative years were wasted), but I do love a song that reaches out and connects in my mind to characters in my stories. Sometimes it’s the lyrics, sometimes it’s a sound, sometimes a mood, but they’re almost always pop songs because I usually discover them in the car on long drives while my mind is working out plot points. Currently, Harry Styles and I are deep into The Spaces Between with Falling (the whole Fine Line album is terrific, btw). My other novel favored lots of John Mayer.

~ William Stafford is one of my life-mentors for a good reason. His blend of pragmatism and natural optimism make me hopeful. I’m leaving you with my morning copywork from today - with a slight {alteration} - if you’ll forgive my boldness, Mr. Stafford.

A Story That Could Be True

If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.

He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by—
you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”—
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a {queen}.”

May you face all your doubts and questions today in such a spirit.

peace,

tonia

P.S. Three weeks until my classes start and I’m working as hard as I can on rewrites for The Spaces Between. Send stamina and a few extra hours, please. <3

February, fourth week :: 2021

I went out for a walk this morning, the first one in a while. The trail is just on the far side of winter now, right on the doorstep of spring. I could almost hear the nettles pulsing their fresh green heads beneath the mud. Another week? Two?

For our Northern Hemisphere ancestors, late February would have been a hungry time, the cold damp deep in the bones, the winter stores gone or withered of their vitality. I imagine some long-ago ancestress scanning the fields and woods for that first flash of green, the first sign that nourishment was coming. I live a very different life, but I find myself harboring the same February ache, searching my own fields for something fresh and life-giving. You too?

I made the rounds the other day online, doing my civic duty to stay informed and aware, and I wondered if the news has ever been such a late-winter place, full of muck and weariness. I came away spattered with our local version, a sneering kind of mud, supercilious and cynical, that clings to the mind long after.

I have to be careful with that kind of thing, because cynicism and superciliousness come too easy to me. Writing has been a way to resist it, to grow, by the force of words, something green and hopeful within myself. I wrote myself a note that day: You are not an outrage factory.

I keep thinking of something Barry Lopez wrote about his friend, Brian Doyle, whose life and work mentors me constantly:

You were … the example that keeps us from despair, cynicism, detachment, and the other poisons bred in the bowels of our complex lives.

You walked in beauty, my dear friend. We all watched.

And now it is our turn.

(So. You are not an outrage factory. You are a lamp, made to be filled with light, a bowl of herbs, pungent with healing, a circle of arms for welcome. Your eyes are made for far-seeing and uncovering hope. This, this, this, is you.)

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A handful of things from the week:

"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry is part of our "Poetry Films" series, which features animated interpretations of beloved poems from our archive. ...

H/T: Rachel

~ This post from Susan about where writers work. Some lovely and inspiring photos. (Wendell Berry {happy sigh.} And despite my love for huge bookcases, Nigella Lawson’s space is giving me a bit of claustrophobia!)

~ Saturday’s full moon is the Snow Moon, the last full moon of winter. I’m going to make something simple for dinner, in keeping with the late-winter theme. (Maybe a nightshade-free version of colcannon and some sausages? I might splurge on dessert though.) If the weather cooperates, we’ll spend some time under the moonlight. <3

~ Exploring the work of Caroline Shaw after reading about her in The Atlantic. Here’s a nice introduction.

I’ll leave you with something from Brian Doyle:

The coolest most amazing people I have met in my life, I said, are the ones who are not very interested in power or money, but who are very interested in laughter and courage and grace under duress and holding hands against the darkness, and finding new ways to solve old problems, and being attentive and tender and kind to every sort of being, especially dogs and birds, and of course children.

Let’s hold hands against the darkness, shall we?

tonia

February 4, 2021

The birds were singing when I went out this morning and the bulbs I rushed into the ground in November are poking their heads up, but we always get a false spring in February and I’m refusing to be drawn in.  I know Mother Nature has 8 more weeks of drizzle and grey skies for us here.  I don’t mind.  I’m pretty fond of winter.

 I’m up to my ears right now in 7th grade algebra.  Square roots and the distributive property, sigh.  I’ve got a couple more weeks to take my math placement exam and as I’m hoping to do the least amount of math possible over this degree I have to study hard now.  I’m just calling this humiliation month.  I’m thinking that maybe some really nice pencils and a good pencil sharpener would help me enjoy this better.  (Check yes if you agree that good writing supplies always improve a situation.) I ordered a new fountain pen and the yummiest, smoothest ink a while back and that has been making me happy pretty much every day, so it follows that new pencils will make math easier, right?  I’m all about textural pleasures.

A few things I want to remember this week:

~ I came across this advice from Jerry Seinfeld in a newsletter I follow this morning.

LEARN HOW TO ENCOURAGE YOURSELF

Oof, I needed that.  I’m still way too dependent on the approval of others (or flustered by their disapproval).  Insecurity and shut-down women run in my family like water through a hose, but hell if I’m going to join them.  This is the year of doing hard things, of finding the guts to speak and live on my own. (Eleanor approves.)

~ Speaking of going solo, did you see this post on the realities of Instagram engagement?  I hope no one is actually buying into this. In case you are wondering, it’s been a year and a half since I left social media and I have no regrets.  I still check in occasionally on a few people whose content enrich me and I’m grateful for people creating beautiful posts, but I do have a secret hope that we’ll move on some day and the corporations can figure out how to make money by doing their own damn work. 

~ appleturnover’s channel is a gift.  Such beautiful little films about a small-scale regenerative homestead. 

~ Adrienne Maree Brown on the founding wound.  Woah. (Worth reading the whole thing if you have time.)

things are not getting worse
they are getting uncovered
we must hold each other tight
and continue to pull back the veil
see: we, the body, we are the wounded place

 ~ And this, from last month, but still making me cry.  I’m so thankful for the people in my life who have allowed me to change and still love me as myself.  A couple of friends in particular - you know who you are! But mostly my husband, for whom I feel such deep, deep gratitude. 

Until next time.

Peace keep you.

best of the books, 2020

Happy, happy new year (AT LAST) my friends! Since I’m not getting any newsletters out right now, here’s a little end of year reading update. I finished 107 books this year which was a pretty good year for me. These are the ones that stand out in my memory (with some of my Goodreads notes included):

Nonfiction:

On Immunity: An Inoculation - Eula Biss - My son gave me a copy of this well before the pandemic arrived, but it’s certainly timely now. Biss writes as a mother, with a mother's perspectives and concerns, in pursuit of understanding the history of vaccination, the fears around it, the science we know and don't know, and the ways our lives are changed because of it. She is empathetic, real, curious, and human in her responses to what she uncovers. The book is not so much an argument for vaccination as an exploration of what it means to be a parent, what it means to live in community, our dependence on each other, and the real challenge of fear. The book is imminently readable and approachable. Highly recommended.

Distant Neighbors: Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder - Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder have two very different approaches to life (WB is an agrarian in the Christian tradition, GS is an environmental activist and Zen Buddhist) but both men are poets and writers who managed to forge a respectful and affectionate friendship through the years. I was so touched by their admiration and respect for each other's work, for the way they capitalized on agreement and went to each other for understanding their own biases and assumptions. My own affection for both men grew as I read their correspondence, but I was most taken with Berry, whose quiet humility, thoughtfulness, integrity and goodness shines through. What a lovely book for these fractious days.

Stamped From the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi - I don't feel qualified to judge the merits of this book as a history text - as I read I began to think of it more as sitting down with an intelligent, informed neighbor to hear their side of an ongoing story. It was powerful, shocking (not to discover that racism is pervasive, but to realize how much of it I've passively accepted in my life), humbling, and infuriating.

It is a long book, over 500 pages, and densely written. At times, I thought Kendi wielded his labels a little too broadly, but as I said, I considered the book from the standpoint of hearing a version of my history from a necessary and informed perspective rather than a precise history (though, as I said, I'm simply not qualified to judge it on those merits.) Still, it's an outstanding, eye-opening, and disturbing work that I wish everyone could read.

Poetry:

Deaf Republic - Ilya Kaminsky -

"We lived happily during the war
And when they bombed other people's houses, we
protested
but not enough..."

"At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow this?
And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow this?"

A parable/poem about a town's response to oppression and occupation. When a deaf boy is shot in the street by a soldier, the townspeople choose to become deaf. A moving challenge to our collective silence and our acceptance of atrocity.

Refugia - Kyce Bello - Refugia are habitats of retreat, where organisms and ecosystems go to try and survive. Kyce Bello takes that idea and explores what it means to be alive now, in a world that is changing, where much of what we love is dying. What does it mean to be a mother now? A child? How do you make plans to survive? How do you bear the weight of guilt? What will carry on? What will be left behind?

An absolutely beautiful and timely collection that has held my hand through all these pandemic days and will go on and on with me through the years ahead. (In fact, I keep a portion of one of these poems in the footer of the blog.)

Fiction:

Less - Andrew Sean Greer - I just loved this. It reminded me of a P.G. Wodehouse novel - if Wodehouse made Bertie Wooster a gay, middle-aged, slightly lost novelist and set him loose in the world without Jeeves. Sweet, funny, and quite brilliant. Nice skewering of the publishing world and writer's egos. It was a charming break from the too serious reading I've been doing.

Weather - Jenny Offill - I kept hearing how strange Offill's writing was, so I put off reading her. My bad. I absolutely loved this, and I love her style. It takes tremendous skill to pull a narrative along in short paragraphs. I thought it was brilliant. And the subject matter - a woman's anxiety about climate insecurity - is imminently relatable.

Writers & Lovers - Lily King - This story of a young woman trying to finish her novel and work through grief is one of my favorites this year. King's descriptions of the inner-anguish of novel writing alone would make this a keeper, but she has also created a protagonist that is easy to like and easy to root for.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk - A strange little murder mystery with a grouchy, complicated, astrology and animal loving protagonist. (Somehow connected in my mind with Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands, which I also enjoyed a lot.)

Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse - Fantasy set in pre-Columbian America? YES. Fabulous world creation, characters, intricate and interesting plot, great writing. Crows. Amazing. Can't wait for the next installment.

I’d love to hear any of your favorites, so please feel free to share! (I also love to hear about books you hated and why. Unlike last year (I’m looking at you, Where the Crawdads Sing) I had a pretty good run and don’t have any books I want to burn in the New Year’s bonfire, but if you’ve got one, do tell! )

"...how to keep from becoming evil..."

I don’t know what else to do with 2020 but just roll with it. Lately my body has been rebelling with aches and pains and general grouchiness against any kind of sitting at a desk so I’ve been putting my energy into moving instead. I can’t remember an autumn when I have written less or been more caught up on yard work. All the bulbs are in, the gardens are put to bed, the herbs are harvested, the roses are pruned, and my yoga game is strong.

Maybe all that physical work is also a way of distracting myself from the state of the country (what in the hell is even going ON, people?!) which is probably a good thing since my Enneagram 1-ness would ordinarily be in high-distress mode about all the ideal-smashing and not-improving that is going on these days.

I mostly gave up alcohol a few months ago, but I’m making it through by being exhausted at night and keeping company with wise mentors. Right now I’m reading Distant Neighbors: The Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder, which I highly recommend. Both Berry and Snyder have been fighting the good fight (each in their own, often very different, ways) for longer than I’ve been alive. WB had this to say back in 1978, and I’ll leave you with it:

“…living at peace is a difficult, deceptive concept. Same for not resisting evil. You can struggle, embattle yourself, resist evil until you become evil - as anti-communism becomes totalitarian. I have no doubt of that. But I don’t feel the least bit of an inclination to lie down and be a rug either, and now I begin to ask myself if I can live at peace only by being reconciled to battle….I am, I believe, a “nonviolent” fighter. But I am a fighter. And I see with considerable sorrow that I am not going to get done fighting and live at peace in anything like the simple way I once thought I would. So how to keep from becoming evil?

Maybe the answer is to fight always for what you particularly love, not for abstractions and not against anything: don’t fight against even the devil and don’t fight “to save the world.” […]

If you don’t see how much badness comes from stupidity, ignorance, confusion, etc - if you don’t see how much badness is done by good, likeable people, if you don’t love, or don’t know you love, people whose actions you deplore - then I guess you go too far into outrage, acquire diseased motives, quit having any fun, and get bad yourself.”

Be gentle to yourselves. And each other.

with love,

tonia